Daily Archives: January 22, 2013

Journal-Sentinel: On Tuesday, the Alliance Defending Freedom announced it and other groups had petitioned the high court to hear an appeal of the December ruling. “We are appealing the appellate court’s decision because this domestic partnership schemed is precisely the type of o marriage imitation that the voters intended to prevent,” said Austin Nimucks, senior counsel with ADF in Washington, D.C. . . . Fair Wisconsin Executive Director Katie Belanger said, “It is disappointing that the plaintiffs and the Alliance Defending Freedom are continuing their efforts to take away important legal protections from same-sex couples and their families.”

Free Beacon: The State Department has refused to cancel or delay the delivery of several American-made F-16 fighter jets to Egypt, claiming that the arms deal serves America’s “regional security interests,” according to an official State Department document obtained by the Free

Alan Sears at the Alliance Defending Freedom Blog: This week, as you and your family join other believers across America in pausing to remember, and to grieve, the 40th year since one of the worst Supreme Court decisions in our nation’s history, we do so differently perhaps, than we ever have before … with real, tangible hope that the end of this terrible, open season on children in the womb is coming, at last, to an end.

Yakima Herald: A state Senate bill that would require any girl younger than 18 to notify her parent or guardian before having an abortion will soon get a hearing.

Delmarva Now: In 2011, Delawareans learned that we have the highest abortion rate in the country. The state’s abortion rate is higher than those of New York, New Jersey and California, and it’s more than twice the national average.

Defenders of California’s marriage amendment filed their opening brief with the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday. The brief argues that the high court should affirm the validity and rational basis of the amendment and refuse demands for a judicially-imposed end to the robust, ongoing public debate about marriage.

Engage Family Minute: We can learn much from Dr. King, starting with the fact that wherever injustice is we ought to be there. We oppose abortion because it is a great injustice against a defenseless human, it is an unjust preying of an industry upon women (an inordinate number of whom are minority women) for profit, and a ritual callousing of the soul of those who trumpet abortion for any reason, at any time as reproductive health care.

Stuff.co.nz: MP’s considering gay marriage legislation have been presented with a 72,000-strong petition opposing the move.

Turnto10.com: Legislation to allow same-sex marriage in Rhode Island is headed for a vote in the state House of Representatives after being unanimously endorsed Tuesday by a legislative committee.

KRQE.com: Democratic representative Brian Egolf of Santa Fe is proposing a constitutional amendment to officially recognize same sex marriages.

WDAZ.com: Legislation was announced today that would protect people from being discriminated against because of their sexual preference when it comes to housing and employment. Currently the law does not include this in North Dakota so it is legal to discriminate someone on that basis.

WacoTrib.com: A group of Waco residents is seeking a city ordinance to bar public and private employers from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation.

Florida Times-Union: James Cyrus Gilbert maintains in the lawsuit that state officials rejected his application for the tags 4GAYLIB, GAYPWR and GAYGUY.

Journal Star: On Tuesday she introduced a bill (LB485) that would prohibit discrimination in hiring, recruitment, promotion and other workplace issues, based on sexual orientation or marital status. The prohibition would not apply to religious organization

Washington Post: Forget about raising the federal debt limit. House Republicans are proposing to ignore it altogether — at least until May 18.

The Daily Beast: Four decades after Roe v. Wade, the U.S. has 724 remaining abortion clinics. From the dearth of clinics through the country’s center to the states requiring in-person counseling, see some of the findings from our abortion map.

Church in Chains: Police in Turkey say they thwarted an assassination plot against Emre Karaali (pictured) on Tuesday 15 January when they arrested 14 suspects, two of whom had been part of his congregation for more than a year.

Amy Julia Becker at the Atlantic: Many American women terminate their pregnancies when they discover their child will have Down syndrome. Is that so different from mothers in other parts of the world who abort unwanted girls?

Marjorie Dannenfelser at Washington Times: In 2011, government subsidies to Planned Parenthood reached an all-time high, with the abortion provider receiving a whopping $542 million in taxpayer funding — all while ending a record number of lives — 333,964.

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys and allied attorneys representing Wisconsin taxpayers asked the state Supreme Court Tuesday to weigh in on the full meaning of Wisconsin’s marriage amendment and whether it authorizes the creation of other marriage-like unions.

LifeSiteNews: Pope Benedict XVI says Catholic agencies must sometimes refuse partnerships that would even indirectly support activities opposed to the Christian view of the human person.

Wall Street Journal: In recent years, rather than trying to ban abortion, anti-abortion activists have embraced a different approach: pursuing legislation in Congress and the states that chips away at abortion rights.

Examiner.com: Kelly Shackelford, voted one of the top 25 lawyers in Texas, told a packed crowd today about his defense of the right to pray of preachers, students and veterans.

The Spokesman Review: Add Twin Falls and Lewiston to the list of Idaho cities to ban discrimination based on a person’s sexual orientation. City councils in both cities voted Monday night for language adding sexual orientation to their non-discrimination policies.

Denver Post: Senate Bill 11is scheduled to be heard Wednesday afternoon by the Senate Judiciary Committee, starting at 1:30 p.m. The bill allows gay couples to form civil unions, and sets forth the rights, responsibilities and requirements of those entering a civil union.

WorldNetDaily: A new report on a U.S. Marines plan to put women in “tip of the spear” combat positions argues females are not “equal” when it comes to hand-to-hand combat. The report by the Center for Military Readiness, or CMR, warns America’s social experiment with the members of its military may become costly.

CNSNews: Taro Aso, Japan’s 72-year-old finance minister, says he’s worried about the financial burden that end-of-life care is placing on his country.

USA Today: With the Supreme Court poised to take up two cases that could determine the future of gay marriage, supporters of its legalization are hailing President Barack Obama’s second inaugural address as a watershed moment, as he once again publicly embraced support for legal unions between gay couples.

TIME interviewed Weddington ten years ago about her experience with the case, and recently caught up with her to discuss the ongoing abortion wars. Below are excerpts from the conversation and audio clips from her historic reargument on October 11, 1972.

The Hill: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will present colleagues with options for reforming the Senate’s filibuster rules in a Democratic Caucus meeting Tuesday.

Religion Clause Blog: The New York Times reported yesterday that the state of Georgia’s popular tax credit program for contributions to private school scholarship programs has become controversial because more than 115 religiously sponsored schools that benefit from the program have explicit bans on attendance by gay, lesbian and bisexual students.

Eric Stanley at Speak Up Movement: Pastors must proclaim that God’s truth does not and will not change. Abortion is just as wrong today as it was 40 years ago. And it will be wrong forever. And forever is a lot longer than forty years.

Newsmax: Murry said the district has hired Liberty Institute, a law firm that handles religious liberty cases, to help with the complaint and to investigation the issues regarding equal access for visitors to the school.

William Federer at The Moral Liberal: Did Jefferson intend to outlaw the acknowledgment of God and limit students, teachers, coaches, schools, organizations, and communities from public religious expression?

Arkansas Matters: A new state bill would allow Arkansas public schools to add a curriculum to study the Bible. The bill has been shot down before, but many residents hope it passes this time.

Patheos: This is a guest post by Daniel Koster. Daniel is the President of the Wekiva Atheist and Secular Alliance at Wekiva High School in Florida. . . . We found out late Monday night that the School Board had given a group permission to hand out Bibles at our schools. The news reported it and David Williamson, leader of the Central Florida Freethought Community, alerted several local leaders in a message headed “URGENT.”

TribLive.com: Thou Shalt Not Move is continuing to keep the fight to keep the Ten Commandments monument at its current location at Connellsville Junior High School in the public eye.

AP: The workers demanded the scrapping of the ridiculously strict requirements stipulating that workers only have two minutes to go to the toilet and workers will be fined 50 yuan ($8) if they are late once and fired if they are late twice,” said the security guard, surnamed Feng.

Bill Donohue at Newsmax: Hollywood was not given a pass because of the delicacy of the Constitution: there are First Amendment considerations in trimming the rights of the mentally ill, and there are Second Amendment rights involved in gun control. Hollywood was given a pass because it greases Obama.

AP: Militant Orthodox activists have attacked members of Russia’s embattled gay community protesting against a planned law banning “gay propaganda”.

AP: An official says Nepal’s government will begin issuing citizenship certificates with the category “third gender” for people who do not wish to be identified as male or female.

Marty Lederman at SCOTUS Blog: On March 26 and 27, the Court will hear oral argument in the same-sex marriage cases, Hollingsworth v. Perry (the challenge to California’s Proposition 8) and United States v. Windsor (the challenge to Section 3 of the federal Defense of Marriage Act).  The first briefs in the cases will be filed tomorrow, on January 22.  In advance of those filings, the blog has published a series of posts by Marty Lederman of the Georgetown University Law Center on the Article III questions the Court has asked the parties to address in the two cases.  This is the final post in that series.

LifeNews: On the 40^th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the supporters of abortion in the mainstream media are working overtime to push their dishonest message to the public. A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showing alleged public support for Roe v. Wade – the headline screams “Majority, for first time, want abortion to be legal” – is a prime example of how the mainstream media often manipulates facts, data, and people.

Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe: We thank the Christian Legal Centre (www.christianconcern.com/christian-legal-centre) and Alliance Defending Freedom (www.alliancedefendingfreedom.org) for their detailed analyses of the cases and the text elements provided in this text. We also thank the European Center for Law and Justice (www.eclj.org) for their publications.

Missouri Family Policy Council: Instead of backing down, the Franklin County Commission adopted a policy formalizing the procedures for prayer before Commission meetings. The new guidelines reflected recommendations from the Alliance Defending Freedom, the nation’s leading Christian legal defense firm . . . Please be praying as well for the lawyers who are protecting our free exercise rights in this case: Brett Harvey of the Alliance Defending Freedom, and St. Louis attorney Tim Belz.

Matt Sharp appeared on the Zeb Bell Show to discuss this: Atheists Still Not Gleeful About Christmas. | MP3 audio 17:41 mins

NY Times: Or as Alan J. Reinach, a leader and lawyer with the Seventh-day Adventists, put it, there is a fight between those who want government to control the church and those who want the church to control government.

Paul Coleman appeared on the Zeb Bell Show to discuss recent EU Religious Freedom rulings. | MP3 audio 12:02 mins

WBIR.com: A report from Alliance Defending Freedom, a Phoenix-based Christian legal group, claims that that audits of Planned Parenthood programs in 10 states showed about $8 million in overbilling. Whistleblower suits filed by former Planned Parent workers in California, Texas, and Iowa made similar claims. Michael Norton, senior counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, is the lawyer in the Houston and Iowa suits. The Iowa suit accused was dismissed in district court, but he’s optimistic about the Houston suit. That suit accuses Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, based in Houston, of overbilling the Texas Women’s Health Program by $5.7 million, by charging for medical services related to abortion . . . Norton, an abortion foe, said he hopes that politicians will crack down on Planned Parenthood. “Everyone agrees that Planned Parenthood has to play by the same rules as anyone else,” he said.

Alan Sears at Townhall: Put another way, Planned Parenthood—a favorite of this president and his administration and his party—finds children to be worth more dead than alive. And the government, aggressively supporting that position, has effectively put a bounty on children in the womb.

Daily Mail: Only four doctors in the U.S. offer third-trimester abortions, knowing they risk their own lives every day to carry out such controversial procedures.These doctors are the subject of a documentary screened at the Sundance film festival last weekend, forty years after the legalization of abortion in the U.S. and four years after Dr Tiller.

LA Times: The excitement that Obama’s remarks spurred among advocates of gay marriage was matched by dismay among its opponents. Byron Babione, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, which is co-counsel in the Proposition 8 case now before the Supreme Court, said it was “deeply dishonest to equate the civil rights movement to today’s homosexual activism.” “Civil rights marchers were met with batons, fire hoses, tear gas and nooses. So-called pride parades are met with Fortune 500 corporate sponsorship,” he said. “African Americans were systematically dehumanized, while homosexual activists are lionized by every powerful cultural institution and center of wealth in America.”

LifeNews: The United States marks 40 years of legalized abortion in all fifty states at any time for any reason throughout pregnancy on January 22nd, the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. Since that time, there have been approximately 55,772,015 abortions that have destroyed the lives of unborn children.